Ford Fourqurean’s accomplishments as a clarinet- ist include winning several young artist competi- tions for college musicians. But for years hestruggled with the instrument, after picking it as an up-grade from the recorder in fifth grade, the 2014 MarcusL. Urann Fellowship winner said in a phone interview.“I didn’t really enjoy playing the clarinet until the11th grade because I didn’t have the right person to in-spire me,” he said.

Enter clarinetist and academic Lisa Oberlander. Impressed by her technique, artistry and insight at a master class, Fourqurean committed to driving two hours
each way every other week from his hometown of Fayetteville, Ga., to study with her at Columbus State University for the remainder of high school. He increased
the lessons to once a week during summers. She
wouldn’t have given him the time of day based on his
then-middling talent, but Fourqurean kept showing up.
And she kept mentoring.

“Music was hard,” he said. “I picked it because Ifigured it would be something that I could work at fora long time and not get bored.”The diligence has paid off. Fourqurean majored inmusic performance at Columbus State, his Phi Kappa Phichapter, under guru Oberlander. And he traveled toJapan, Canada, and England to learn from other pro-fessional clarinetists and attend music festivals.

Through an internship with the Columbus Sympho-ny, Fourqurean also discovered that to excite peopleabout music, making it accessible proves vital. So heutilized social media to attract audiences.Fourqurean, who also held various positions at theSewanee Summer Music Festival, now pursues a mas-ter of music in performance at Stony Brook University.

“It’s never about the notes,” he said. “I’m at thelevel where I can learn a piece and play it perfectlywell, but it’s still not a very convincing performance be-cause I don’t have the shaping, the phrasing. And I’mstill lacking a few basic things, a few foundationalthings that are preventing me from really being able tosing very fluidly through a lot of the music shapes thatI need to be able to address.”Nonetheless, being a finalist in other young artist

Orchestrating Success through Effort

contests surely indicates his sustained progress.

Fourqurean, who lists Elliott Carter and Claude DeBussy as influences, plans to earn a doctorate in his
field and develop new strategies to bring music to diverse listeners around the world. He dreams of teaching
at the college level while continuing to perform chamber music.

Ashley Barnas is a multimedia specialist at
University of Delaware. She earlier worked as a visual
journalist at The News Journal/ DelawareOnline.com.

Barnas earned a bachelor’s degree in journalismand broadcast communications from Elon University,her Phi Kappa Phi chapter. She often writes for thewinter awards edition of this magazine. Email her atashley.barnas@gmail.com.